|
In considering Relation we must enquire whether it possesses
the community of a genus, or whether it may on other grounds be
treated as a unity.
Above all, has Relation- for example, that of right and left,
double and half- any actuality? Has it, perhaps, actuality in
some cases only, as for instance in what is termed "posterior"
but not in what is termed "prior"? Or is its actuality in no case
conceivable?
What meaning, then, are we to attach to double and half and all
other cases of less and more; to habit and disposition,
reclining, sitting, standing; to father, son, master, slave; to
like, unlike, equal, unequal; to active and passive, measure and
measured; or again to knowledge and sensation, as related
respectively to the knowable and the sensible?
Knowledge, indeed, may be supposed to entail in relation to the
known object some actual entity corresponding to that object's
Ideal Form, and similarly with sensation as related to the
sense-object. The active will perform some constant function in
relation to the passive, as will the measure in relation to the
measured.
But what will emerge from the relation of like to like? Nothing
will emerge. Likeness is the inherence of qualitative identity;
its entire content is the quality present in the two objects.
From equality, similarly, nothing emerges. The relation merely
presupposes the existence of a quantitative identity;- is nothing
but our judgement comparing objects essentially independent and
concluding, "This and that have the same magnitude, the same
quality; this has produced that; this is superior to that."
Again, what meaning can sitting and standing have apart from
sitter and stander? The term "habit" either implies a having, in
which case it signifies possession, or else it arises from
something had, and so denotes quality; and similarly with
disposition.
What then in these instances can be the meaning of correlatives
apart from our conception of their juxtaposition? "Greater" may
refer to very different magnitudes; "different" to all sorts of
objects: the comparison is ours; it does not lie in the things
themselves.
Right and left, before and behind, would seem to belong less to
the category of Relation than to that of Situation. Right means
"situated at one point," left means "situated at another." But
the right and left are in our conception, nothing of them in the
things themselves.
Before and after are merely two times; the relation is again of
our making.
|
|